'You're gonna hafta talk to me, madame, sooner or later. It be better sooner,' Daddy said.
She shifted her eyes to me again. I could feel the curiosity twirling around in her brain, and her face softened.
'All right, Summers,' she said to the butler. 'I'll speak with these people.' She said 'people' as if we were lower than grasshoppers. 'First room on the right,' she ordered, and we entered the mansion.
I had never been inside a house this large and couldn't help but gape at everything: the mauve marble entryway, the great tapestries depicting grand plantation houses and grounds and Civil War scenes. Before us to the left was a square, polished mahogany stairway, and above us, from the high ceilings, dangled teardrop chandeliers with glittering brass necks. Beyond the entryway, the house seemed to go on forever. I saw pedestals with sculptures, and beside the tapestries, there was artwork covering every available space. It didn't look like a home so much as it looked like a government building or a museum.
We entered the room on the right. The first thing that caught my eye was the parasol roof. We stepped onto a rich beige carpet. The room had honey beige straw-cloth walls, blond beige woods, rosy beige leather on the French chairs.
Everything looked so clean and neat and new, I was afraid to touch anything. Gladys Tate stopped in the middle of the room and turned to Daddy. She ran her eyes from his head to his feet. He wore his old boots stained with mud. She looked like she was trying to decide where he could do the least damage. Finally she nodded at a small chair to the right.
'I'll give you five minutes,' she said.
Daddy grunted and sat. He looked like he would bust the chair into pieces merely by leaning back. Gladys Tate sat on the settee, her back squarely against the cushion. She looked at me and then at Daddy.
'Well?'
'Your husband raped my daughter and made her pregnant,' he said without hesitation.
I held my breath and didn't swallow. Gladys Tate did not change expression, but it was as if the shadows that carpeted the front of the great house had somehow penetrated the walls and darkened her face.
'I assume,' she said after the heavy pause, 'you have some proof to support this astounding accusation.'
'My daughter's the proof. She'll tell you how it was exactly. She don't lie.'
'I see.' She fixed her stone eyes on me. 'Where did this alleged incident occur?'
'In the swamp, madame,' I said softly.
'The swamp?'
'In the canals. He was fishing when he come upon her in her pond, a place she goes swimming,' Daddy said.
Gladys Tate stared at him as if it took a few moments for Daddy's words to be translated, and then she turned back to me.
'You know who my husband is?'
'Yes, madame.'
'You say he came upon you while you were swimming?'
'I was actually sunning myself on the rock at the time.
When I opened my eyes, he was there. I was . . .'
'Nude?'
'Yes, madame.'
She nodded. Then she smiled at Daddy.
'Do you know what it means to make false accusations, especially accusations of such a serious nature?'
'It ain't false,' Daddy said.
'I see. And you have brought your daughter here for what purpose?'
'What purpose? He made her pregnant. That's gonna be a costly thing.'
'Oh, so it's not justice you seek so much as it is money, is that it?' she asked with a wry smile painted across her lips.
'That's justice, ain't it?' Daddy retorted.
'Have you spoken with my husband?'
'Yeah, and he don't want to own up to it. But he will,' Daddy threatened. 'Look at her,' Daddy said, pumping his hand toward me. 'Look at what he done to my little girl. How's she supposed to find a decent husband when her stomach's two feet ahead of her, huh? And all because your husband had his way with her!'
Gladys Tate stared at me again. 'You're the girl who ran off the stage at graduation, aren't you?' she asked.
'Yes, madame.'
'And you,' she said, turning to Daddy, 'are the man who made that ridiculous scene.'
'That ain't got nothing to do with this.'
She stared again. These silent pauses sent chills up my spine, but Daddy didn't seem to notice or care. Finally she sighed, shook her head.
